I loved this book. We had to read it for AP English and I wasn't looking forward to reading ANOTHER boring classics. To Me all classics are very boring and depressing. THIS book on the otherhand kept me guessing. I never knew what was going to happen. It was a definite page turner, ore so than anyother classic book I've ever read.

After watching a great movie that portrayed a modernized version of this book, and knowing that it was considered a real classic, I had great expectations for the original novel by Charles Dickens. The old-fashioned style of writing was annoying, especially at first, but after reading through the first few chapters I got a bit used to it. As it turned out to my great surprise, the plot of the original story by Dickens was totally different from the movie and no where near as good. As I got further and further into the book, MY great expectations for it quickly turned into great disappointments.

This is a kid style treatment of Great Expectations. It is a large format picture book by Gallery Books. It is a good abbreviated version for those who enjoy exposing young children to classical works.

Summary:
One of Dickens shorter novels and also one of his most influential is Great Expectations. It appeared initially in serial form in All The Year Round between 1860 and 1861 and is now considered to be one of his finest novels. It concerns the young boy Philip Pirrip (known as Pip) and his development through life after an early meeting with the escaped convict Abel Magwitch, who he treats kindly despite his fear. His unpleasant sister and her humorous and friendly blacksmith husband, Joe, bring him up. Crucial to his development as an individual is his introduction to Miss Havisham (one of Dickens most brilliant portraits), a now aging woman who has given up on life after being jilted at the altar. Cruelly, Havisham has brought up her daughter Estella to revenge her own pain and so as Pip falls in love with her she is made to torture him in romance. Aspiring to be a gentleman despite his humble beginnings, Pip seems to achieve the impossible by receiving a fund of wealth from an unknown source and being sent to London with the lawyer Jaggers. He is employed but eventually loses everything and Estella marries another. His benefactor turns out to have been Magwitch and his future existence is based upon outgrowing the great expectations and returning to Joe and honest laout. Eventually he is reunited with Estella.

Review:
Great Expectations is an excellent Dickens classic, although I thought it was a little slow. Nevertheless, a great read!

Hugh Laurie's reading is great -- each character has their own specific voice which makes the story more interesting and enjoyable. The ending was a bit abrupt, but the abridgement was otherwise good -- a nice compact tale without being too lengthy. This is a nice introduction to Dickens for those who are only familiar with "A Christmas Carol".

This is far and above, my favorite book of all I've read so far. I enjoy Dickens, personally, though. The read was long, getting it in audiobook from the library,as well, help me finish the book and stay focused on the story. Dickens has an amazing writing style.

I first read this in my 9th grade English class. I would probably have never chosen to read it on my own, but I really enjoyed it. My teacher was amazing and he made the book bearable for the class and really made me appreciate it more than I think I would have on my own.

The story of orphan Pip and the mysterious fortune which ffalls into his lap, his snobbish rejection of his old friends and his grwoth through pain and mishap into maturity. Excellent Charles Dickens classic.

Pip, a poor orphan being raised by a cruel sister, does not have much in the way of great expectations between his terrifying experience in a graveyard with a convict named Magwitch and his humiliating visits with the eccentric Miss Havisham's beautiful but manipulative niece, Estella, who torments him until he is elevated to wealth by an anonymous benefactor. Full of unforgettable characters, Great Expectations is a tale of intrigue, unattainable love, and all of the happiness money can't buy. Great Expectations has the most wonderful and most perfectly worked-out plot for a novel in the English language, according to John Irving, and J. Hillis Miller declares, Great Expectations is the most unified and concentrated expression of Dickens's abiding sense of the world, and Pip might be called the archetypal Dickens hero.

In what may be Dickens’s best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman—and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of “great expectations.” In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride.

Pip is an orphan, alone in the world. Then his path crossed with that of an escapted convict, and his life is never the same again. From the decaying mansion of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward, Estella, to a new world of unexpected wealth, Pip must struggle to find his way. Mysterious forces are at work, shaping his life in a conspiracy of love, fear, fate, and chance. Pip knows the kind of life he was meant to lead. What he doesn't know is whether life will lead him in an altogether different -- and startling -- direction.

In the marshy mists of a village churchyard, a tiny orphan boy named Pip is suddenly terrifed by a shirvering, limping convict on the run. Years later, a supremely arrogant young Pip boards the coach to London where, by the grace of a mysterious benefactor, he will join the ranks of the idle rich and become a gentleman. Finally, in the luminous mists of the village at evening, Pip the man meets Estella, his dazzlingly beautiful tormentor, in a ruined garden-and lays to rest all the heartaches and ilusions that his "great expectations" have brought upon him.
...taken from the back cover of the book